Mobile communication systems continue to grow in popularity and have become an integral part of both personal and business communications. Various mobile devices now incorporate Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) features such as calendars, address books, task lists, calculators, memo and writing programs, media players, games, etc. These multi-function devices usually allow users to send and receive electronic mail (email) messages wirelessly and access the internet via a cellular network and/or a wireless local area network (WLAN), for example.
Handheld electronic devices may have a number of different configurations. Examples of such devices include personal data assistants (“PDAs”), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and the like. Many handheld electronic devices also feature wireless communication capability, although many other handheld electronic devices are stand-alone devices that are functional without communication with other devices.
Handheld electronic devices are generally intended to be portable, and thus, are typically a relatively compact configuration in which keys and other input structures often perform multiple functions under certain circumstances or may otherwise have multiple aspects or features assigned thereto.
In addition to using keys on a keypad, handheld electronic devices may also use a touch screen. A touch screen is typically a display screen overlay which provides the ability to display and receive information on the same display screen. The effect of the overlay is to allow a display screen to be used as an input device, removing the keys on the keypad as the primary input device for interacting with the display screen's content. Display screens with integrated touch screens can make computers and handheld electronic devices more useable. A touch screen or touch screen system typically includes a touch sensor, a controller or processor, and accompanying software. The controller communicates user selections to the processor of the electronic device in which the touch screen is used. The controller and processor can be separate or the same device.
Although touch screens are advantageous, it would be more advantageous to enhance a user experience where a display screen would not require touch activation and a non-touch based input device could be provided to enhance the user experience in the application space by computing the location of an object close to the screen and report the x, y, z coordinates to an application program used by the mobile wireless communications device and require determination of position. This could enhance a user's experience such as with a keyboard that is displayed by the input screen and act as a virtual three-dimensional keyboard in which the user maneuvers a stylus or other object (perhaps even his or her finger) in a typing movement and the input screen would know the object's location relative to the virtual or 3D keyboard and allow typing from those different location coordinates.